Throughout Mental Health Month in May 2016, The Texas Tribune partnered with the Mental Health Channel and KLRU to focus on some of Texas’ biggest challenges in providing mental health care. The series featured a mix of traditional Tribune reporting, a panel discussion hosted by KLRU, deep-dive reporting videos and a PBS special that aired nationwide. Topics of coverage included hurdles specific communities face and their workarounds, mental health in our school system, veterans and mental health, and mental health and the criminal justice system.

In partnership with KLRU and the Mental Health Channel, The Texas Tribune brings you Mental Health Matters, a news magazine program that takes viewers across the state to meet Texans finding or providing mental health care in innovative ways.

Criminal justice experts say that determining mental health can be hard for anyone, including judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors and jurors. They say the issues revealed in three cases are key in furthering the discussion in how mental health is gauged when weighing the death penalty for killers.

More female veterans call Texas home than any other state in the country, according to 2015 figures. One nonprofit group in Houston ensures that female veterans get a safe space to receive counseling and learn from one another's experiences.

Mental illness is a leading cause of disability in the U.S., resulting in absenteeism, diminished productivity and increased turnover. In this segment of in this episode of Mental Health Matters, we look at several legislative and employer-based policies that strive to support workers and strengthen businesses and the economy.

This segment of Mental Health Matters highlights work that provides more effective school-based mental health programs to improve the lives of the most vulnerable population, when budgets are tight and infrastructure may be lacking.

In this segment of Mental Health Matters, we look at efforts in Texas to keep people with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and instead provide them more affordable services more tailored to their needs.

When federal mental health care services diminished dramatically a few decades ago, community programs were supposed to take their place. This episode of Mental Health Matters looks at which are working today and if they can be affordably replicated.

Service members returning from war can face a higher risk of mental health issues. This segment of Mental Health Matters looks at Texas programs that help veterans reintegrate and reduce their exposure to substance abuse, homelessness and incarceration.

Texas lawmakers tout recent improvements to the state’s mental health safety net, citing new funding and program expansions. But the state still struggles to provide psychiatric care for all patients who need it.